GES defends extension of SHS placement deadline

The Ghana Education Service has defended the continuous extension of the deadline for posting students to the various Senior High Schools in the country.

Government has extended the deadline for the computerized placement system four times in less than two weeks.

The deadline which began with a 48-hour ultimate has now been extended to the end of September 2017.

Explaining the reasons for the extension on The Big Issue on Saturday, Chairman of the GES Council, Mr. Michael Kenneth Nsowah said the service still has over 30,000 students out of the 400,000 qualified candidates to post.

“The online registration is being done with a purpose because we have a target to post over 400,00 candidates who have qualified to enter secondary school…At this point when we have done about 386,000, we still have about 30,000 to go.”

“If you say you have closed admissions when in fact you want to get more people into the system then it doesn’t make sense to end the process. Headmasters are now going back to their schools; they have been in Ho the whole week.

From Monday they are going to start their admissions so if by the end of today we say the process has ended and when they begin their admissions and realize that more students have not reported, they might need new postings…so if you say you’ve closed, there may be more vacancies which might affect the schools.

And that is why after a series of consultations and meetings we’ve decided that we cannot close admissions now,” Mr. Nsowah who is also a former director of GES noted.

Background

The Computerized School Selection Placement System (CSSPS) which is supposed to post the BECE graduates to their preferred SHS choices initially encountered some challenges, with error notices greeting students who had been trying, since September 1, to access the website for self-placement.

But the government said these problems had been addressed, following the setting up of a new website.

The original website for the self-placement, www.myjhsresult.net, now contains a link that directs users to the new website, www.cssps.gov.gh.

The issues with the CSSPS began when the Ghana Education Service’s (GES) announcement of an extension for the placement of BECE candidates after it emerged that over 100,000 qualified candidates had still not been placed.

The GES later asked qualified students who were not placed to go online and select an option available during the extended window.

Mr. Nsowah on The Big Issue lamented the internet challenges some potential students encountered while accessing the online placement portal but rejected claims that the system was not well thought through.

“We planned well. We were expecting that internet services will be available throughout the country. We were expecting the system to help us achieve our goal,” he added.